The Female Of the Species

In slightly belated honor of Mother’s Day.

Several months ago, I read an article in Binah Magazine, on the topic of women getting along with their mothers-in-law. Although I unfortunately no longer have access to the issue, I recall that the thrust of the article was that although the mother-in-law – daughter-in-law relationship is often fraught with tension and unpleasantness, it need not be thus. One particular utterance, attributed to some contemporary woman, caught my attention:

Your mother-in-law is not your enemy.

Actually, a woman’s mother-in-law is her enemy (and vice versa); the Halachah presumes that they are such diabolical foes that they are suspected of nefariously plotting each other’s socio-religious destruction:

RavMoshe (Maharam) Ibn Ḥabib considers this aconclusivepresumption: “even if we knew of them that they had loved each other, and no quarrel was ever heard between them, they are nevertheless presumed to hate each other, and the hatred is submerged within the heart”:

Note that this invalidation of testimony due to a presumption of hatred is limited (at least according to the mainstream view) to females; a male may testify on behalf of his female relatives.4 One explanation for this distinction posits that an assumption underlying our rejection of the testimony of the Five Women is the קלות הדעת of Woman in general (as we have previously discussed here):

Thanks! I don’t have access to Roth’s book, but I read R. Herzog’s responsum (link), and while he does suggest that the rationale behind the rule of the Five Women may no longer apply, this is merely because of changes in legal and socio-economic conditions, and not due to any improvement in women’s moral or psychological fiber.